Fear Factory

To keep his voice in condition he has to be careful. “I exercise, I take care of myself. That’s just normal, but when it comes to vocal time I won’t smoke – certain things,” Bell says with laugh. “I won’t drink on a day that I’m supposed to do vocals, I won’t be hungover when I need to go in to do vocals. I’ve just got to be smart about it, really.”

The other way Fear Factory revolutionised metal was with their use of double-kick drums. Their former drummer Raymond Herrera was once clocked as the second-fastest in the world, and his high-speed rumble in sync with Dino Cazares’ machine-gun riffing was a formative part of their sound. Herrera is no longer a member of the band, however, and while Fear Factory have found a new drummer in Mike Heller, their 2012 album The Industrialist was recorded entirely with programmed drums.

Their next record will have a mix of both programmed and live drumming. “Using programmed drums was mostly for expedition,” says Bell. “It was to expedite the process, just to simplify it, and therefore we can work on it more quickly and efficiently. This time we’ve had more time to work on it so we’re able to make plans and have Mike prepare the drums and come in. One day, boom, it’s done.”

The irony of a band whose songs so often explore the theme of machines replacing humanity and technology making us obsolete – Fear Factory’s 1998 album was literally called Obsolete – going on to replace its drummer with a literal machine isn’t lost on Bell. No matter how fast the double-kicks got, the human element always meant there was a limit and the tempos would have to be altered to suit. That might seem like a weakness, but it often gave Fear Factory’s songs a dynamic that suited the shifting vocal styles – one which they didn’t manage to replicate on The Industrialist, but hope to rekindle on the album they’re working on now. “It’s the tempo,” says Bell. “The songs that we want the live drummer on are not blistering speed, but it’s a tempo that has a fast but heavy groove to it that having live drum sounds will make a world of difference.”

That new album will hopefully be out before Fear Factory return to Australia to play the Soundwave Festival. They’ve been touring here since 1993, an eventful tour on which “every crowd was insane, every crowd knew the words”. Bell enjoyed his time here so much he asked the promoter if he could stay. “I mentioned, ‘Man, I would have wanted to come to Australia as a kid. I want to stay and be a tourist.’ So we made it happen where we extended my ticket, extended my visa, and I stayed in Australia for almost another two months. I was in Perth, I got a job as a bar-back in a bar there for a couple weeks and my promoter gave me a job to go on tour with a local Australian band, Painters And Dockers. Years ago, I went on tour with Painters And Dockers on the west coast; drove from Esperance all the way to Darwin in a minivan.”

Fear Factory also chose Australia to be the first placed they played for their 2004 reunion shows, debuting as a mystery band at that year’s Big Day Out. Bell enjoyed it not just for the shows but for the opportunity to hang out backstage and meet the rest of the bands as a fan. “It was huge, and that was a great tour. There were a lot of good bands. Metallica was on that, The Darkness, Black Eyed Peas, The Strokes, Dandy Warhols. God, Muse was on that tour. It was a fantastic tour.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Bell’s tastes range far beyond metal. Fear Factory after all are the band which got Gary Numan to do two songs with them, including a cover of his classic ‘Cars’. “We had no idea that he would do it,” says Bell. “We told the label that we were gonna cover ‘Cars’ because it’s a great song, and why not? Unbeknownst to us the label reached out to Gary Numan and contacted his management and asked him if he would be interested. He said yes, so the label flew him out to Vancouver, where we were, and he was there for a couple days. Obviously he did his part flawlessly in like five seconds and the rest of the time was just vacation.”

But what do you do on vacation with Gary Numan? You go see a sci-fi movie, of course. “We went with Gary Numan to see Dark City. Sitting there in the movie theatre going, ‘Holy fuck, Gary Numan is sitting next to me. I’m watching a movie with Gary Numan!’”